Ennio Morricone in Belfast

[milltown row]

was that the movie with James Coburn playing the Ra man that goes to Mexico and meets the Bandit think it was played by rod Stieger. off course being in the Ra James was good at blowing things up.

i wonder when it came out did Gregory Campbell complain about the IRA overtones

[Donagh]

Went to the bother of typing this out in response to O'Neills earlier question so I'll post it anyway:

It was originally planned as part of a trilogy with 'Once Upon a Time in the West' and 'Once 'Upon a Time in America' with similar themes – the new environment leaving the heroes behind, betrayal etc... Only with this one he wanted examine murky aspects of 'revolution' and how it will usually turn on itself – hence the Mao Tse Tung quote at the start of the uncut original.

Unfortunately for him the movie was finished around the time when the Vietnam War was raging and the studio wasn't happy with the way it was panning out so the American release was shelved and they were pushing for a new title.

Leone himself wanted to go then with the Italian phrase 'Giù la Testa' which at the time was a hip way of saying 'keep your head down pal' (or Duck, You Sucker). For some reason he thought that this was a cool a phrase in the US as it was in Italy so allowed it to go with that for the American release.

The problem then was that the studio was never going to release a near three hour exposition on revolution to audiences at that time on the one hand and a silly name on the other. The end result was that they cut the movie down by so much (about 45 minutes) that most of the plot was lost and audiences didn't take to it.

The next great plan by the studio was to cut it even more in an attempt to make it out to be a comedy type western. To get the audiences in (this is four years after his last movie) the studio then decided they'd have to associate the film with the Dollars Trilogy so they renamed it 'A Fistful of Dynamite'. It was released again and still bombed.

To this day the only full version is the original Italian 'Giù la Testa' with the next best until last year being the BBC laserdisc version of 'Fistful of Dynamite'  (missing about 8 minutes, including the massacre of Juans sons and the crucial last ménage à trios  flashback). Even the most recent 'Directors Cut'  (Once Upon a Time... the Revolution) is still missing about 3 minutes.

After reading that back, I can see, yes I am a nerd 

[Donagh]

was that the movie with James Coburn playing the Ra man that goes to Mexico and meets the Bandit think it was played by rod Stieger. off course being in the Ra James was good at blowing things up.

i wonder when it came out did Gregory Campbell complain about the IRA overtones

Don't get me started on all the theories behind the names of the lead characters - Juan and John (though Coburn initially introduces himself as Séan - as do the original trailers)